there, put that dark blanket over you. I'll try to make myself invisible too.'
Glen pressed himself into a small space between a rising vent pipe and the roof joists. He pointed his sawed-off shotgun at the access door.
'I'll shoot when you do,' Jack told him. Glen looked over, saw the .45 auto in Jack's hands.
Putting down his shotgun, Glen crouch-walked over to Jack. 'Give me the pistol.'
'Why? It's mine.'
'It isn't yours,' Chris called out. 'Give it to Mr. Shepard.'
For an instant, Glen thought the teenager would shoot him. Then he saw that the hammer was only at half-cock. He grabbed the pistol, twisted it from the boy's hands.
'I'm taking this weapon,' Glen told him, 'because you having it is a threat to our lives. All you've been talking about is shooting them, and if you did that they'd kill us all.'
'You asshole!' Jack shouted. 'You're no one to me, you can't play God with me, I'll...'
One-handed, Glen grabbed the teenager by the throat and started to choke him. 'Be quiet!' he hissed. 'You'll get us killed.'
Roger whispered from the far end of the attic. 'Do what he tells you, jerk-off! You should be thanking him. He risked his life to help us.'
'Shut the fuck up, nigger!' Jack screamed at Roger.
'Ohhhhhh... ' Glen just laughed. 'Is this guy your friend?'
'Will you shut up?' Chris hissed. 'They're out there!'
Crouch-walking again, Glen went to the vent viewing the street. 'Where?'
'Coming around the corner. He isn't really a friend of ours, by the way,' Chris explained quietly to Glen. 'We sorta know him. He was hanging around, when all this started.'
'When it's over, why don't you and your cousin kick that punk's ass? Until then, we'd better watch him carefully. Here they come.'
'They're in the neighbor's backyard!' Roger gulped.
Glen and Chris watched the Outlaws search the houses.
They kicked down doors, broke windows. Dogs barked. Shots silenced them.
A new group of bikers roared up on their Harleys, Kawasakis, Hondas, led by the barrel-chested Outlaw in the Confederate Army cap. He wore a shotgun slung over his shoulder. A long bayonet flashed in the morning light. The group continued to the house where Acidhead had died; they parked their bikes there, and went in.
A pistol popped in the house next to where they hid. Three bikers dragged an elderly man and woman from the house. Outlaws converged on the scene. The elderly man — white-haired and stick thin — comforted his wife as bikers crowded around them, taunting the old man.
The biker in the Rebel cap swaggered up and glared at the old man. One of the bikers who had dragged out the couple showed the Rebel-capped biker a small pistol, then pointed to a rip in his jacket sleeve. The Confederate biker unslung his shotgun.
'Oh, God,' Chris gasped, turning away from the vent. 'I can't watch this.'
'Watch it,' Glen told him. 'It's what'll happen to you, to all of us if we get caught.'
'Run, you old geezer!' the Outlaw suddenly boomed. 'You want to escape. Here's your chance!'
Glen looked outside. The bikers cleared a path for the couple. A biker shoved them. The Confederate Outlaw stood with the shotgun at his hip, pointing at the old couple only six feet away.
The white-haired old man shook his head. He refused to run. He held his wife, pressing her face to his chest. He kissed her forehead.
A single blast threw them to the asphalt. They sprawled together, a huge blood pool spreading around them.
'Now they're coming to search this house,' Glen told the others.
'Hey, Stonewall!' a biker on the street called out. 'You are one cold mother.' Several bikers laughed.
Glen peeked out, saw the Rebel-capped biker loading shells into his shotgun. Now Glen knew the biker's name: Stonewall.
'Think that's cold?' the biker shouted. 'I'm looking for the hero that killed one of ours. When I find him... You all see this cap? When I'm done with that hero, I'm going to wear his hide for a hat — right up here, nose and eyes and lips and all, just like a coonskin cap.'
More laughter. Boots kicked down the door. Shotgun blasts inside the house shattered windows, sent furniture crashing. They must have been doing this to every house on the island. Bikers shouted: 'Where are you? Get out of this house! All we want's your money and valuables. And we want you down at the Casino. Anybody in here, come out. We want you with the other people.'
Laughter. Rifle shots ripped through the house. A shotgun blast smashed a wall beneath them; a single pellet popped through the rafters, then bounced off the roof joists.
'Glen,' his wife whispered, 'come be here with me...'
'I can't!' he hissed.
Boots stormed up the stairs. Doors slammed open, furniture fell. A voice shouted: 'Check every closet!'
The blast of a shotgun. Plaster exploding upward. 'That closet's checked!' Laughter.
'Rings! Diamonds. Hey, asshole. Split it with me.'
'They're mine. Find your own.'
'Both of you!' Stonewall's voice boomed. 'Stick that trash in your pockets. Search this house. You got two dead buddies and you're fighting over some phony rings? Search that closet, under the bed, up in the attic, everywhere!'
'Psst!' Glen hissed to Roger. Then he and Chris blocked the vent near them. The attic went pitch dark.
Furniture crashed down. The closet door leading to the attic access creaked open. Shoes and suitcases fell from the shelves.
'Hey, there's a trapdoor going up,' a biker said.
'You going up there?'
'Going up. First, some reconnaissance by fire!'
An explosion of plaster, insulation, and splintered wood filled the attic. Sudden light flashed as the debris flew. Dim light glowed through the several holes in the access panel and closet ceiling.
As the biker pushed up the splintered access panel, Glen could hear Roger's breathing shudder slightly. But he could do nothing. He could not encourage or comfort the teenager. A word or a sound would betray them all.
The biker's head appeared above the rafters, swivelling in all directions. 'Hey, you! You! I see you...'
'You got one?' a biker called from below.
Glen heard Chris stop breathing. Slowly, very slowly, Glen grasped the butt of the Magnum in his belt. Outside, bikers laughed and shouted. A motorcycle raced down the street.
The head dropped down. 'Nah, nothing up there.'
Stonewall shouted again. 'Move it! We got this whole block to search. Find anything?'
'Nah,' the biker answered, the last to leave the house.
'Then move it! Find that hero! Horse is going to waste my ass if I don't come up with that bastard.'
Glen glanced out front, saw the last biker leave the house and start down the block. Stonewall came out of the house, shotgun ready, its long bayonet flashing. He turned, stared at the house. He saw the attic vent, stared at it. From the hip, he pointed the shotgun, fired.
Glen jerked Chris away as the louvers exploded. Light streamed into the attic. For a half minute, Glen and Chris lay without moving on the rafters.
'Glen!' his wife whispered.
'I'm all right,' he gasped. He went back to the shattered louvers and snuck a peek. The front lawn was deserted.
They listened. In the house, there was only silence. But in the house next door, there were shouts and shots and crashing.
'Mr. Shepard,' Roger whispered from the far end. 'Can I let down the blanket now? I'm shot.'
